Any discussion of the background art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
It is known to make use of a computer system to perform a search based on a set of criteria. Indeed, such a concept is central to substantially all searching technologies. In broad terms, a searcher provides a query based on one or more criteria, such as keywords and/or qualitative identifiers, and is provided with none or more results in response to the query.
In terms of interfacing parties, the traditional approach is for a first party to provide a set of criteria, and for a search engine to identify none or more parties meeting that set of criteria. For example, a person wishing to purchase a used car provides search criteria (such a price range, make, model, and the like), and the search engine identifies one or more records reflective of used cars posted by persons wishing to sell used cars. For the present purposes, this is referred to as “unidirectional matching”, as only the interests of one party are considered (in this case being the party wishing to purchase a used car).
Unidirectional matching is not always appropriate for interfacing parties. Although it is typically suitable for situations where one party has criteria that should be satisfied and the other party is generally impartial (as is the case in most buyer/seller environments), there are situations where both parties have criteria that should be satisfied. This becomes relevant in situations where, although a first party might match criteria provided by a second party, the second party might not match criteria provided by the first party. This leads to a concept referred to herein as “bidirectional matching”. By way of bidirectional matching, two (or optionally more) parties are matched based on mutual satisfaction of specified criteria.
Bidirectional matching is conceptually and technologically challenging, and known approaches are relatively rudimentary in nature. It follows that there is a need for improved systems and methods for interfacing parties.